Sunday, September 14, 2014

As many of
you might already know we have had a rough couple of months at our
home. My sweet hubby had to have bypass surgery on July 2.

If
you follow along on Face book you read how well he was doing. He was a
star patient doing everything he should. All his vitals were great, he
was eating better, exercising at rehab, and doing all the right stuff.

It was all pretty seamless, or as seamless as emergency bypass surgery can go.

He had only one little problem. He seemed to develop acid reflux. He had never had this problem prior to surgery.

We
did all the usual remedies, cooking more blandly, not eating anything
we knew to cause a problem, and took the medications that were
recommended by the doctor.

He
would get acid reflux when he would walk on the treadmill at rehab, or
here at home, and sometimes with eating certain foods, but to be honest
there was no rhythm or reason to any of it.

Upon going back to the cardiologist for a recheck we pursued the question of what could be causing this.

You see my husband listened to his body once again and did not dismiss what we thought was acid reflux.

The cardiologist was a bit concerned, but not overly. He recommended a treadmill with an echo cardiogram.

The
test was done a week later, and it was somewhat inconclusive, so he
felt that we needed a more definitive answer to what might be going on
so he wanted to do another angiogram.

The
Dr. thought he saw a slight difference in the shape of the left side of
Doug’s heart, it was ever so slightly smaller, which would indicate
less blood flow.

NOT what we wanted to hear, but we truly wanted some resolve.

On Wednesday of last week my sweet hubby went through another procedure.

I
knew if everything was clear, and good to go it would take a little
over an hour, if not, and they needed to do stints, it would be closer
to 2 hours or a little more.

After about 4-5 hours of riding an emotional roller coaster in the waiting room I finally found out what was wrong with my love.

One of the three bypasses had failed. It was the main artery bypass.

There
were five doctors in the procedure room observing, and discussing what
would be the best thing to do since the main artery was 99% blocked, and
that is why they did the bypass to begin with.

They
decided to do what is basically like a rotor rooter, and clear out the
main artery, and they placed 3 very long stints in his main artery.

We
are not sure why the original bypass failed, and we will be discussing
this with our Doctor further in the very near future. It does happen,
but not very often, about .1% of the time the type bypass they used will
fail.

(there is a lot more technical information, but I won’t bore you with those details here.)

For
now, we are being very thankful people that once again my sweet Hubby
was spared, even the Dr. said, “Thank God you did not have a heart
attack.”

After a lot of research Doug said, “I don’t understand how I did not have a heart attack.”

I reminded him, “ I do!! you were covered in prayer and for now God has answered my request to keep you here with me for a bit longer.”

You see I call it a request because I realize my ultimate prayer should be...

“Thine will be done!”

But,
I also know that God listens to request and this time he listened to a
lot of people requesting a return to good health for my sweet Dougie.

The blessing in all of this is that I DID see God’s hand once again. You see I am learning to LOOK for him in every step of my life.

I was looking for God’s hand and this is what I saw………….

The
machine that they used on my hubby is fairly new, and not all
cardiologist are knowledgeable in using it. One of the Dr.s that is very
capable was on duty, and was called in to assist.

How
in the world will 5 cardiologist be able to clear their schedule to
consult, and observe for over 2-3 hours while Doug was in the procedure
room? Hmmmm? interesting.

Some might think coincidence, but I am a praying wife and I say, “It was Gods hand!”

I
don’t have answers why he has gone though so much other than the
logical one’s like, eating better, more exercise etc, etc., but I do
know I have seen the hand of God many times in the last two months and I
am so very grateful.

I
will never pretend that I did not have my panicked moments. Sitting
that long in a little room wondering if he is going to be alright, or
live is not fun, and it was truly an emotional roller coaster.

I can say it was one of the worst days of my life, and yet it was one
of the most wonderful too, once I saw him out of that procedure room. I
was never so happy to see him in all my life.

We
are human, and we have human feelings. One of the greatest is Love, and
oh how I love this man, and I realize we have such a special love that
has been blessed in so many ways, but we also have human frailties, of
worry, fear and anxiety.

I am still learning like the rest of you to try and not focus on the problem, but the problem solver.

The ultimate test for we humans is always in our faith, faith in the fact that God is omnipotent, and that he knows best in all cases.

We
must realize that even though it feels like it is just happening to us,
and our loved one’s it actually might be effecting more people than we
might ever know about, but God knows the whole story from beginning to
end and he will do what is best for ALL, not just for me and my hubby.

That
is what I have to trust in, his omnipotence. I will never be able to
accept the hurt of a loved one, or the loss of a loved one, but I must always accept
that God’s hand is in my life, and he will always do what is best for
all, and that my dear friends is the ultimate test of faith in my life.

He never promised us it would be easy, or perfect but he DID promise he will be there to get us through whatever we have to go through in this thing called LIFE!!

You can read about what happened originally Here, be sure and read to the bottom of post.